Investigators at the Institute believe the discovery, announced today at the 4th International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in Boston, could be a major step toward developing a routine blood test that would allow autism to be detected in newborns and treatment or even prevention to be initiated early in life.
Over the last two decades parents, educators, scientists and pediatricians have been alarmed by a dramatic and baffling rise in the prevalence of autism, which now affects as many as 1 in every 166 children. But diagnosing autism, a brain disorder that leaves children in apparent isolation from their families and communities, is currently accomplished through a series of behavioral observations that are not reliable until a child is between 2 and 3-years-old.
"Finding a sensitive and accurate biological marker for autism that can be revealed by a simple blood test would have enormous implications for diagnosing, treating and understanding more about the underlying causes of autism," said David G. Amaral, research director at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and one of the co-authors of the paper presented at IMFAR. "Not being able to detect autism until a child is close to 3-years-old eliminates a valuable window of treatment opportunity during the first few years of life when the brain is undergoing tremendous development."
Amaral along with pediatric neuropsychologist Blythe Corbett and other M.I.N.D. Institute colleagues took blood samples from 70 children with autism who were between 4 and 6 years old and from 35 children
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5-May-2005